Different Names for the Same Thing
by Aiedail01
Summary: My collection of Harry Potter challenges from the challenge forum! Now playing: keelhaulrose’s House Quotes challenge. "I don’t think I even like Astoria." "Sometimes Ron irritates the hell out of me."
1. Frozen

**So this is my collection of Harry Potter challenges from the challenge forum! Yayyy! Hope you like them all. :)  
**

**Title: Frozen**

**Challenge: Suicide Challenge**

**Character/Pairings: Draco/Hermione**

**Rating: T**

**xxx**

It's snowing.

Draco Malfoy killed himself today. In the woods, by a tree. He was alone. Maybe there was a flash of green light from his wand, something strange in the forest. Maybe birds flew away at the sound, or snow cascaded down from the top of a pine tree. Maybe.

No one saw.

The snowflakes fall from the sky like teardrops, some in clumps, some alone, collecting in a powder at her feet.

Hermione is frozen.

The sky is crying for her.

A piece of paper is clutched in her hand, thin translucent paper, damp in spots, and torn. She grips it tightly, she will not let it go.

She breathes in short gasps, anger and pain, barely registering the frigid air flooding her lungs, not seeing the puff of steam as her warm breath mingles with the cold.

She can't make herself take a step forward. She can't make herself move. She can't make herself do anything.

The tops of her cheeks are turning red from the wind, the tip of her nose too. The wind whistles achingly, sadly.

Whistling for her? Maybe.

Her hands are chapped. Her knuckles split, blood running the same color as her nose. Her hair is wild. The tips of her toes are numb.

Her whole body is numb, but she likes it that way.

She stands at the edge of the woods. Skinny birch trees with stripes like zebras popping from the earth. Great pines with dark green needles and sweet sap frozen on its path down the trunk.

She is not alone.

People surround her, but she can't see them.

Her eyes close in a slow blink, and she can't open them again.

"Draco... Malfoy..." she hears someone say, or maybe it was in her head.

Her frozen lips move of their own accord. "Don't say his name," she tells her boots. By now they're buried in snow, covering her, pulling her down.

Her socks are damp. These boots aren't water proof.

The sudden logicality of this thought stuns her into an awareness, her eyes opening, a shiver wracking her body.

How long has she been out here?

But now her brain has retreated back into a frozen cave of chaotic thoughts and conversations and the past and the future are merging into a nightmare. What happened? Where is she? What is this?

There are memories of pale yellow hair on pale skin and brilliant blue eyes. Soft kisses, holding hands. Warmth. Wholeness.

Whispered "I-love-you's" and "I-miss-you's." Hours of talking, about nothing important. The thought of being together is there, the words are not.

But their last conversation is stuck, something that's been on repeat for hours it seems, but no matter how many times she tries to press the stop button it keeps going. It kills her every time.

_"I visited my father, Hermione." _

_It was snowing then, too. Only last week.___

_"He was happy to see me. Even with the dementor hovering over him and sucking out every happy thing he could imagine, he was still happy to see me. And then I told him about you. And he spit in my face." He turned away from her._

_And she laughed. She laughed! She had the audacity to laugh at him. She placed a hand on his back. "It's okay, Draco. It doesn't matter."_

_Suddenly he turned back, eyes flashing, the blue cutting through her like a sapphire. Like in the ring on her finger. "It doesn't matter?" he hissed. "He is my father, Hermione. Of course it matters!"___

_Her fingers jumped back like they were caught in a mouse trap. She burned. "I know, I know... I didn't think..."___

_He didn't say anything._

_"But your mother approves..."___

_"My mother is barely sane. She doesn't know anything, Hermione. She doesn't care. She's gone into a shell or something, she isn't how she was before."_

_She tried to hug him, but he shoved her away like she is nothing, a doll, something meaningless._

_"I'm not how I was before." He said this quietly, hands shoved in his pockets. His eyes were cast down._

_This statement surprised her, though it really shouldn't have. She knew he wasn't the same. _

_"None of us are, Draco." She tried to soothe him then. "Since the war, we are not the same."_

_He rolled his eyes. "Oh, right. Your family is safe, Granger."_

_She blinked. Granger, it was something negative from their school days, something synonymous with "mudblood."_

_"My dad is in Azkaban. My mom is a goddamn nutcase. I saw my friends die in front of me! And you think __everyone__ is this different?"___

_Hermione's eyes flashed. "You think you're the only one who lost something?" She would not take this. "__Fred Weasley__ died! Remus and Tonks and Sirius and __Dumbledore__ and Snape and Moody and Colin Creevey, for christ's sake! Dobby the house elf! And so many more. I lost _my_ friends." She paused, as if holding something in, but it spilled over her lips. "I lose myself, and that scares me."_

_"Me too," he replied, and it seemed like he'd relaxed. "But you seem to be dealing with it just fine," he said nastily. _

_She didn't know why he was determined to be the victim. But it irritated her._

_"Well, I'm not! Just because I'm not whining about it doesn't mean I don't feel something!"_

_"You think I'm whining?" He scoffed, rolled his eyes, but she could see she'd hurt him. "I just need you to be here for me, Hermione."_

"I need _you__ to stop only thinking about yourself."_

_He sighed tiredly. _

_She took a good look at his face- sunken, paler than usually. Dark circles like bruises beneath this eyes._

_"Sometimes I think it would be easier if..." he trailed off._

"_If what? You weren't here?" She closed her eyes. "Everyone thinks that. And you know what? Everyone's right! It would be a hell of a lot easier! But life's about dealing with things. When you get past something, it makes you stronger."_

_He didn't respond. He simply leaned against her and took a deep breath._

"_You smell so good," he mumbled into her shoulder._

_She blinked, surprised._

But before she could say anything, he stood up and walked away.

And now it was this. She'd given him a break, she didn't want to be clingy, she'd thought he'd needed space, she hadn't pressured him.

She should have.

She should have told someone.

She should have been there for him.

They've taken him out of the woods, she doesn't know where, only that it is away from her. She blinks and she is the only one standing at the edge of the forest, the snow is up past her ankles.

She isn't wearing a jacket.

Again, she is surprised by how the thought makes sense.

But it leads her to more realizations, and she recognizes she can't stay out here.

Her body is stiff, frozen, but she turns, slowly, the snow falls from her air as she moves. She walks home.

Her fingers loosen their grip on the ball of paper, and it drifts into the snow, and before long it is buried in snow on the frozen earth.

_Hermione,_

_There are some things I just couldn't deal with._

_I'm sorry, it has to be this way._

_Draco_

_**xxx **_

_**Review, please!**_


	2. Shuffle

**Title: Shuffle**

**Challenge: Kore-of-Myth's Shuffle Challenge**

**Characters: Draco, Ginny/Harry, Bellatrix/Voldemort**

**Rating: T**

**---**

**There is a Light That Never Goes Out - Anberlin (Smiths Cover)**

Draco was alone, and he couldn't stand it.

He was rarely at home, if you could even call it that- this place where his mother cried and his father was disappointed in him and the silence was deafening except for the occasional sniff and stifled sob.

So he left at night, wandered in the darkened streets, around and under bridges. He made attempts to get somewhere, but it didn't work. He was stuck repeating this circuit of bars and wizard shops, most of which were closed and didn't want _him_ in there, oh, no, a Malfoy and not even a good one at that.

He made some dark dealings in Knockturn Alley, selling things he found and buying things he didn't want. Something he shouldn't be a part of and his father would hate him more if he knew, but he didn't care or it didn't matter or something. He wasn't thinking.

But he always ended up drunk somewhere, the floor or the back of a pub, bottles of stale firewhiskey surrounding him and everyone giving him pitying sighs, and he couldn't move, he couldn't stop this.

He would get over it at some point, maybe.

But he liked being away from everything that was wrong.

**The Summer**** Grof - ****The Spinto Band**

Summer was the best time of the year for Ginny.

She could lounge in the house, occasionally doing chores but really just convincing Fred and George to flick their wands and do them for her so she could continue to be lazy on the couch or in her room.

She could go outside if she wanted, practice on her broom, catching apples and pretending they were the golden snitch.

And all this time she was thinking, imagining, dreaming. She couldn't lie, she was thinking of Harry.

**Personal Jesus**** - ****Depeche Mode**

Maybe something was wrong with Bellatrix.

Maybe this... allegience (if you wanted to phrase it politely) to the Dark Lord was a weird obession. He was something new and exciting and she was a part of it, and maybe she just liked the acceptance.

The more she thought about it, maybe she was doomed to obsess over everything in her entire life, and this was just a phase that was lasting a long, long time.

She was risking her life for this obession, though, maybe she was crazy.

But after awhile it was too deep a subject for her to ponder, and she decided to just let it be. He had carried her this far and he would keep leading her forward. This was the path to be on, this was the life she wanted.

The Dark Lord loved her, cared about her. He protected her, and she served him, his most faithful servant.

Her personal Jesus.


	3. Never

**I tried to wind some sort of symbolism in here. Not so sure how that went. Anyway... **

**Title: Never**

**Challenge: sick-atheartxx's "Never" Challenge.**

**Rating: K+**

**Characters/Pairings: Lily, Petunia**

**---**

**Never**

_The girls are young- Lily seven, __Petunia__ nine- and they are playing in the back yard, digging in the garden of wildflowers._

They are as friendly as sisters could ever be. Different but the same because they believe the same things, have the same goals.

_A __white lily__, innocent and pure (it seems to be floating upon the sturdy stem) growing next to a petunia, lavender and magenta that seems to soothe the whole garden._

If Petunia is a crisp white apron, Lily is a painting smock covered in yellow splotches. Petunia is the sand-colored headboard on the bed, sturdy and supporting, and Lily is the pink flowered comforter thrown haphazardly overtop.

_"We will always be sisters. I will never stop looking out for you." Words vowed as they spit into the soil and hook slender pinkies._

There are fights, pokes in the ribs when Lily forgets to clean their room, name calling when Petunia won't stop talking on the phone, but they're sisters, it's what they do. And it's made up for because they huddle together when Lily is scared of a thunderstorm or Petunia has a bad dream.

_They are sisters; they will watch each other's backs. Now it seems easy, because there is proof in the flowers in front of them._

Lily tries not to be jealous when Petunia heads off to middle school, but it's hard and she can't resist playing loud music when she knows Petunia has to do homework, or staying longer in the bathroom when she knows Petunia has to leave for school. It's simple envy, soon to be chalked up to nothing and forgotten, tossed under the bed with the other unpleasant sisterly memories.

_Later the petunia veers away from lily (the light has stopped shining there)._

But then Lily gets the letter and Petunia doesn't. Everything is different now (simple envy isn't so simple anymore, not when it's over something as big as this).

Petunia is left on her own it seems, she is grappling for the bond she and her sister once shared but now seems to be fading, like the moon when the sun comes up.

It gets worse every day, until it has disintegrated and it is gone and Petunia doesn't even care, because Lily has brought this upon herself.

_The lily dies altogether, petals turning brown and crumbling to the ground, fertilizing the dirt._

The baby appears on her porch in the dead of night, and Petunia doesn't want it.

_A new garden is planted on __Privet__ Drive, full of wildflowers. In the very middle, a lily next to a petunia. Proof._

But the green eyes remind her of the promise and Petunia keeps her word.

_"I will never stop watching out for you."_

_---_

**Hope you liked it, please review!**


	4. Life

**Title: Life**

**Challenge: sick-atxxheart's Poetry challenge**

**Rating: K+**

**Characters/Parings: Ginny**

**Eh, I'm not so good at poetry. But hope you like it anyway. :)**

**---**

Triumph

is evident,

written across worn faces

in the form of shoulders sinking slowly

losing steam, relaxing

Slow smiles

lighting the darkness

Victory-

_You have won_

Emotions are

wild, useless, infinite.

Sadness and joy are intertwining,

a vine choked with thorns,

when there is the boy with

messy brown hair and a scar,

alive and waiting for you,

and there is your brother

dead.

A sacrifice, but was it

necessary?

It doesn't really matter

now,

there's nothing you can do.

Fear, tears

Through the mercy of someone

you're still here.

Your reflection in a mirror

Quick, fleeting

Just a glimpse

Limp red hair and tired eyes

But still a spark of life.

---

**Review, please!**


	5. House Quote

**So I finally decided to update! Wahoo, I guess. :P**

**This is set after the final battle, but before any kids are born. Astoria and Draco are married, as well as Hermione and Ron.**

**Title: **

**Challenge: keelhaulrose's House Quotes challenge**

**Rating: T**

**Characters/Pairings: Tiny bit of Draco/Hermione**

---

She didn't know why she was here, but she immediately regretted sitting down as she looked to her left and saw a familiar blond head.

She ordered a drink without making eye contact, staring into her lap and biting her lip. Twisting her hair and picking her nails.

But as she reached for her the stem of her glass, she thought she saw a gleam in those blue eyes.

"Didn't think you were much a drinker," Draco commented, smiling as Hermione took a tiny sip of her cocktail and winced.

"Yeah, well," Hermione lifelessly, setting the glass down.

"Touché." He rolled his eyes and turned back towards the bar, gulping down the contents of his tumbler. "Could I have another fire whiskey?" he called to the bartender.

After a long moment, as Hermione took several more swallows of her drink, and Draco drummed his fingers impatiently until the refilled tumbler was set down in front of him, he turned back towards her, shiny blonde hair falling across his eyes.

"So."

"So," Hermione responded with an exhale.

Draco raised an eyebrow. "How's life married to the weasel? Drove you to drink already?"

"Lovely, and of course not." she responded tersely. "And Astoria?"

"Great."

There was a silence that seemed to overwhelm them into saying more.

"I don't think I even like Astoria."

"Sometimes Ron irritates the hell out of me."

They each pondered the other's statement, sipping drinks and tapping feet.

"Well, I get what you're saying. Ron Weasley irritates the hell out of everyone. I don't think it's possible for him _not _to be a git."

Hermione glared and folded her arms. "Maybe if you didn't alienate people by saying things like that, you could have a normal relationship. I'm assuming that's why you don't like Astoria- because she actually reacts when you're nasty to her."

Draco snorted, rolled his eyes, and tossed back the rest of the fire whiskey. "I've been alienating people since I was three."

Hermione smirked slightly, running her hands through her hair. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Two more shots, please," Draco called, and the two tiny glasses were slid across the wooden counter toward him. He pushed one in Hermione's direction.

"So, ah, cheers, Granger?"

"Cheers," Hermione said with a shrug.

They clinked glasses.

---

I sort of like that this doesn't go anywhere, or really have a point. It's just open to a future, so imagine it if you like. :)


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